Kirby went ballistic after Duane Alexander (right, from his NIH biography), who has been running a small research bureaucracy in Bethesda since 1986, suggested some people might be genetically vulnerable to vaccines, or have trouble metabolizing mercury. Alexander called it a valid field for study.

This contradicts the legal trend of recent years, and Kirby's own debunking of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, whose study, trumpeted on 1,000 Web sites, claimed the preservative in MMR (Mumps, Measles and Rubella) vaccines given to infants contains mercury which causes autism.

This has led to a large, growing, anti-vaccine movement that leaves kids at risk. Cases of measles are rising. Kids are dieing needlessly.

A vaccine court recently ruled that the standard MMR vaccine is not proven to cause autism, which contradicted the decision last year in a Georgia case where a mitochondrial condition was said to have been aggravated by mercury in the vaccine, thus possibly resulting in a fever that left a girl autistic.

Frankly, Mr. Kirby, I'd like to square those results myself. They appear to be contradictory.

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